Monday, 16 February 2009

Weir(d) Experiments

From my pile of auditioned fabrics, I have constructed 4 samples based on a detail of my photos of the weir on the Grand Union Canal near my home. The one below, while not perfect, is in my opinion the best of the bunch and I'll now be working out how to scale it up into a much larger piece ( this one is 15 x 30 cm). Sue had some very helpful comments to make about having some vertical lines connecting the different areas and I agree that there's too much white. My excuse is that when painting on such a small scale, it's more difficult to control the paint and not go overboard. Below are the 'before and after' photos of each sample ( machine stitched and hand quilted with perle thread then painted with acrylics and acrylic inks) From each experiment, in the words of Charles Dickens in regard to the Circumlocution Office in 'Little Dorrit' (which I have just finished listening to on my i-pod), I have learnt "How NOT to do it."

3 comments:

what a fascinating collection of samples. One of the ways I paint if I use acrylics is to lay down detail in white and then wash over it with a watered down colour, then more white, then wash over it... that way there is never too much but a certain depth is introduced... works very very well with waterfalls.